Dress for you

Tag: mystery

This dress is one of the first dresses I ever made from a vintage pattern (the exact pattern is lost to memory). I posted about it and it was old even then — and I know it’s older than my son, which puts it firmly in the grunge era.

I do really like the collar and the lines of the bodice. I remember clearly that this was a newspaper pattern … Anne Adams or Marian Martin or some such:

Covered buttons — this is before I knew the trick of using white fabric (batiste or organza) underneath the patterned fabric if you don’t want the metal of the button form to show through:

Bias trim on the sleeves:

The back view:

And a closeup view of the back … the only thing I can say is WTH? Where did those seams go? If I weren’t a life-long teetotaler, I would assume that I was drunk when I made this:

And the belt-kit belt, which hasn’t aged well at all:

I should really find the pattern in my stash and make it up again today, and show the two dresses side by side … just so people can see that, just as with everything else, sewing gets better with practice!

This is , which I think I also made once in a striped seersucker version that didn’t survive. I don’t wear this that much because the bodice is a bit blousy for my taste. It definitely needs a belt. I used to wear it with a cream-and-green faux zebra-stripe sash, which sounds ridiculous but actually worked.

I do really like the collar:

Side zip, eh:

The pockets are actual lining material, which I don’t really ever do unless I think they will show through — and this fabric is both pale enough and sheer enough that I thought it would:

I didn’t do a very good job on the back neck, although it was one of my favorite features of the pattern:

This is one of my favorite Liberty prints — I wish I knew the name of it! — and I have a standing bounty on it, let me know if you have any to sell. So when I went back to the UK in , I bought some more and made this:

I can’t find the pattern this was made from — I know I made another version in gray sateen that I abandoned halfway through as it ended up looking like the uniform of someone enslaved in a Magdalene laundry. It was all about the midriff band, which is kind of beside the point in a fabric this busy:

The back is also gathered for a little bit of a train effect:

Here’s a closer look at the bodice — I liked the curve of the v-neck, too: